Syracuse, NY – The departure of four-year kicker/holder Rob Long and long snapper Max Leo from the Syracuse University football roster leaves a couple of holes on Orange special teams this spring.

SU signed a freshman punter (Jonathan Fisher from Oakfield, N.Y.) and long snapper (Sam Rodgers of State College, Pa.), but they won’t be on campus to join the Orange until summer.

An interesting name from the past surfaced last week when head coach Doug Marrone was discussing special teams for 2011.

Shane Raupers, a kicker from Athens, Pa., is set to rejoin the Orange as a walk-on and try to earn the punting job.

Raupers, a football and baseball star at Athens Area High School, signed with SU in April 2009 as a kicker. He was expected to take over the place-kicking job after another kicker, Austin Wallis, left the team in Marrone’s first season.

Raupers spent two days at practice, and then left the team Aug. 18. A look back into the archives doesn’t shed any light on what went wrong. Stories about his signing said he chose the Orange over Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.

Now a junior, the 5-foot-8, 182-pound Raupers will compete with junior Ryan Lichtenstein, who took over the punting job in December after discovery of a brain tumor ended Long’s season following the Boston College game.

Another special teams’ walk-on who will take the field this spring is a long snapper, Eric Morris, a 5-9, 222-pounder from Simi Valley, Calif. Morris played Division II football in California two years ago and is attending SU this year. He wasn’t eligible until this season, according to the football office.

The rest of the special teams’ skill positions will look much like last year, with a few additions.

Ross Krautman is back to follow a freshman season in which he was a second-team All-Big East selection and a freshman All-American. Krautman led the team in scoring with 84 points on 18 of 19 field goals and 30 of 32 extra points. The kicker’s only field goal miss was a 43-yarder at Washington in the second game of the season. He made 16 straight field goals after that to tie Gary Anderson’s school record.